Sweet Savage founder Ray Haller is fresh from the stage at Download Festival when he sits down to reflect on the band's remarkable journey. From rehearsing in a Belfast garden shed during the Troubles to earning the admiration of Metallica and sharing stages with some of rock's biggest names, Haller looks back on the twists and turns that shaped Sweet Savage's legacy. He discusses the band's early days alongside Vivian Campbell, the impact of Metallica's cover of 'Killing Time', and in an exclusive, reveals that Campbell is returning to work with the band for the first time in more than four decades. Eye of the storm; Eamon O'Neill.
Photo; Mark Hylands
We're here at Download festival with Sweet Savage founder, Ray; how are you doing?
I'm doing good.
You're just off the stage, how was it?
I enjoyed it. The first couple of songs were a nightmare, because the thing about festivals is, you never get a sound check, so it takes the first couple of tunes that, either your ears readjust to what you're used to hearing, or the monitor guy gets it right. But when you're a band from Belfast, you can't moan and bitch about it; you're here at Download, we're backstage at Download, we're having a laugh, and we're having a good time.
I wanted to rewind right back, and I grew up in the North as well, and I wanted to know what the scene was like back in 1979 when you guys came onto it.
Well, there was myself, Vivian Campbell from Def Leppard, Trevor Fleming, and Davy Bates, and we formed a band. We were just kids, sort of 15, 16, and we were just playing in Vivian Campbell's shed at the back of his parents' house. We played Thin Lizzy songs, Rory Gallagher songs, you know, all the usuals, Wishbone Ash songs, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, all the classics, and then somebody had this bright idea; "why don't we write a song?", like dead on, fucking write a song, my bollocks! But we did, and we wrote another one, because we played them at gigs. The first gig we did as a band together was at Rathmore School in Belfast, which was where Viv was a pupil, and we played in the school playground, and our stage was two pallets high, and that was it, with about four palettes! And we did this, and people seem to jump about as much to our own songs as well.
So you knew that your own material was creating a buzz.
We wrote our song, and then we sent the demo off to the Friday Rock Show, and Tommy Vance and his producer, Tony Wilson. I remember as plain as day, they actually got back to us and said; "we'd like you to come over and do a session". I was like; "get to fuck! fuck me!", you know, because you know, because there's no rock music on the radio on Radio one, so Friday night, you couldn't go anywhere because of the troubles, you couldn't socialise, everywhere was like a ghost town, so you sat in with your fucking mates on a Friday night, 10 o'clock, Friday Rock Show, having a beer and listening to all the metal that's out there.
So that must have been huge for you to go and do that.
"Hey, we're going to play the Friday Rock Show!", and we went over, which was another great adventure. We had to rent a van, and none of us could rent a van because we were all too young! So we had to get somebody to rent the van to drive us to fucking London! I remember we'd no fucking money, we hadn't a pot to piss in, we had to borrow everything off our parents. We took a boat from Larne to Scotland, and then we had about a three day camel ride down to London; six of us in this Transit which probably only had three seats, and the rest were in back! And driving around Piccadilly, the big lights, like, "wow! Look at that!", and then going to the BBC. I'll never forget going to the BBC back then and going in to see it. "why don't you guys go and get yourselves something to eat?", so there's a canteen, and we go in, and there's all the DJs and news readers that you'd seen.
That was giving you a bit of a kick?
It was like, "fucking wow!", and your hang as well, this only comes from Belfast, and it was like, "it's only like three like a pound for a steak, and a Coke's only 30p , maybe they made a mistake, let's get three steaks, let's get ten Cokes!" So they were great times.
I first came across the band on a compilation that came out in 1990, the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, curated by Lars Ulrich; that was before Metallica had covered 'Killing Time'. I guess you weren't doing anything then, and that was the first inkling then you were going to get a new audience.
We can't thank Metallica enough. I've encountered Metallica over the years, and Lars said, "why didn't keep going? You just should have kept going -that's what we did. "hen everyone said; 'you're fucking dinosaurs, metal's dead, there's a new thing', Metallica just kept going and going and grinding it out". And he said to me, "that's that's where you fucked up, right? You fucked up", and he's right. We did. We could have ridden it out. So, we owe a lot to Metallica, and then that compilation, where we had 'Eye of the Storm' on it, then there was a metal label called Neat Metal, and it was headed up by a guy from the Tygers of Pan Tang, and he said, "do you fancy doing a record", and it was like, "yeah, we'll do a record!", He says; "we're going to pick up the tab, you come over a couple of weeks of studio time, do a record", blah blah blah, and we did, but that all probably stemmed from the fact that Lars thought this band is worth telling the rest of the world about, and that allowed us to go and do the first sort of the proper Sweet Savage 'Killing Time' [1996] record.
Metallica covered 'Killing Time' in 1991, as the B side to 'The Unforgiven'; that's nice company to be in.
Unbelievable. I mean, I think it sold a million copies, I don't think was anything to do with 'The Unforgiven', I think it was 'Killing Time' [laughing].
Did the band message you to tell you they were going to cover the song?
Metallica were 100% up front on everything, as they always are. They said, "we're going to do this. Are you all okay with it?", and it was like, "fuck yeah, absolutely!" So again, as soon as that came out on the B side of 'The Unforgiven', that opened more doors, so then the festivals started coming in, so we started doing European festivals. I mean, again, I can't thank Metallica enough. They basically give us another life.
Back then there was a CD single, or seven inch single, or a 12 inch but as the years move on, the next thing comes out on a special edition of the album, streaming etc, so were you finding new leases of life continually?
Yeah, all the time because it's kind of like, somebody wrote a while back that we're the biggest band that never made it, and I mean, when the 'Bang' record came out [2025] and we did all these interviews, I was amazed by the people that wanted to interview the band from all over the globe. There were all these questions like; "why you guys not huge?", and that's one of those mad questions. I mean, in the North, nobody came to see the bands, couldn't get A&R people, nobody wanted to come over. Belfast was a war zone. Everyone was shit scared about coming along, so we couldn't get a record deal and we couldn't constantly go back into the studio to do more demos because we had no money.
It was a very different landscape.
There was nowhere to gig back in those days where could you go and play original music? There was one venue in Newcastle where they'd put up with it and they listened to original music. So the Metallica thing definitely opened more doors, and it's paid off for us, because we've done every major festival in Europe; Sweden Rock, Waken, and this is the second or third time we played Download, so we've done loads of festivals everywhere. We've also went out to the States to do festivals, and I would have to say it's all on the back of 'Killing Time', the Metallica thing.
I'm doing good.
You're just off the stage, how was it?
I enjoyed it. The first couple of songs were a nightmare, because the thing about festivals is, you never get a sound check, so it takes the first couple of tunes that, either your ears readjust to what you're used to hearing, or the monitor guy gets it right. But when you're a band from Belfast, you can't moan and bitch about it; you're here at Download, we're backstage at Download, we're having a laugh, and we're having a good time.
I wanted to rewind right back, and I grew up in the North as well, and I wanted to know what the scene was like back in 1979 when you guys came onto it.
Well, there was myself, Vivian Campbell from Def Leppard, Trevor Fleming, and Davy Bates, and we formed a band. We were just kids, sort of 15, 16, and we were just playing in Vivian Campbell's shed at the back of his parents' house. We played Thin Lizzy songs, Rory Gallagher songs, you know, all the usuals, Wishbone Ash songs, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, all the classics, and then somebody had this bright idea; "why don't we write a song?", like dead on, fucking write a song, my bollocks! But we did, and we wrote another one, because we played them at gigs. The first gig we did as a band together was at Rathmore School in Belfast, which was where Viv was a pupil, and we played in the school playground, and our stage was two pallets high, and that was it, with about four palettes! And we did this, and people seem to jump about as much to our own songs as well.
So you knew that your own material was creating a buzz.
We wrote our song, and then we sent the demo off to the Friday Rock Show, and Tommy Vance and his producer, Tony Wilson. I remember as plain as day, they actually got back to us and said; "we'd like you to come over and do a session". I was like; "get to fuck! fuck me!", you know, because you know, because there's no rock music on the radio on Radio one, so Friday night, you couldn't go anywhere because of the troubles, you couldn't socialise, everywhere was like a ghost town, so you sat in with your fucking mates on a Friday night, 10 o'clock, Friday Rock Show, having a beer and listening to all the metal that's out there.
So that must have been huge for you to go and do that.
"Hey, we're going to play the Friday Rock Show!", and we went over, which was another great adventure. We had to rent a van, and none of us could rent a van because we were all too young! So we had to get somebody to rent the van to drive us to fucking London! I remember we'd no fucking money, we hadn't a pot to piss in, we had to borrow everything off our parents. We took a boat from Larne to Scotland, and then we had about a three day camel ride down to London; six of us in this Transit which probably only had three seats, and the rest were in back! And driving around Piccadilly, the big lights, like, "wow! Look at that!", and then going to the BBC. I'll never forget going to the BBC back then and going in to see it. "why don't you guys go and get yourselves something to eat?", so there's a canteen, and we go in, and there's all the DJs and news readers that you'd seen.
That was giving you a bit of a kick?
It was like, "fucking wow!", and your hang as well, this only comes from Belfast, and it was like, "it's only like three like a pound for a steak, and a Coke's only 30p , maybe they made a mistake, let's get three steaks, let's get ten Cokes!" So they were great times.
I first came across the band on a compilation that came out in 1990, the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, curated by Lars Ulrich; that was before Metallica had covered 'Killing Time'. I guess you weren't doing anything then, and that was the first inkling then you were going to get a new audience.
We can't thank Metallica enough. I've encountered Metallica over the years, and Lars said, "why didn't keep going? You just should have kept going -that's what we did. "hen everyone said; 'you're fucking dinosaurs, metal's dead, there's a new thing', Metallica just kept going and going and grinding it out". And he said to me, "that's that's where you fucked up, right? You fucked up", and he's right. We did. We could have ridden it out. So, we owe a lot to Metallica, and then that compilation, where we had 'Eye of the Storm' on it, then there was a metal label called Neat Metal, and it was headed up by a guy from the Tygers of Pan Tang, and he said, "do you fancy doing a record", and it was like, "yeah, we'll do a record!", He says; "we're going to pick up the tab, you come over a couple of weeks of studio time, do a record", blah blah blah, and we did, but that all probably stemmed from the fact that Lars thought this band is worth telling the rest of the world about, and that allowed us to go and do the first sort of the proper Sweet Savage 'Killing Time' [1996] record.
Metallica covered 'Killing Time' in 1991, as the B side to 'The Unforgiven'; that's nice company to be in.
Unbelievable. I mean, I think it sold a million copies, I don't think was anything to do with 'The Unforgiven', I think it was 'Killing Time' [laughing].
Did the band message you to tell you they were going to cover the song?
Metallica were 100% up front on everything, as they always are. They said, "we're going to do this. Are you all okay with it?", and it was like, "fuck yeah, absolutely!" So again, as soon as that came out on the B side of 'The Unforgiven', that opened more doors, so then the festivals started coming in, so we started doing European festivals. I mean, again, I can't thank Metallica enough. They basically give us another life.
Back then there was a CD single, or seven inch single, or a 12 inch but as the years move on, the next thing comes out on a special edition of the album, streaming etc, so were you finding new leases of life continually?
Yeah, all the time because it's kind of like, somebody wrote a while back that we're the biggest band that never made it, and I mean, when the 'Bang' record came out [2025] and we did all these interviews, I was amazed by the people that wanted to interview the band from all over the globe. There were all these questions like; "why you guys not huge?", and that's one of those mad questions. I mean, in the North, nobody came to see the bands, couldn't get A&R people, nobody wanted to come over. Belfast was a war zone. Everyone was shit scared about coming along, so we couldn't get a record deal and we couldn't constantly go back into the studio to do more demos because we had no money.
It was a very different landscape.
There was nowhere to gig back in those days where could you go and play original music? There was one venue in Newcastle where they'd put up with it and they listened to original music. So the Metallica thing definitely opened more doors, and it's paid off for us, because we've done every major festival in Europe; Sweden Rock, Waken, and this is the second or third time we played Download, so we've done loads of festivals everywhere. We've also went out to the States to do festivals, and I would have to say it's all on the back of 'Killing Time', the Metallica thing.
Photo; Mark Hylands
I wanted to chat a little about Vivian Campbell. Did you know at that time when you were working with him that he was going to go places?
I did. The linchpin between Viv and I was our friend Trevor Fleming, who died about ten years ago now. Trevor was one of the major writers in the band, but it was Trevor that introduced Viv and I, and Viv and I are best friends still, to this day. I speak to Viv a couple of times a month. He lives in the States, and I'm still in Ireland, but Viv and I speak all the time, and we're really good friends. But it was Trevor that introduced us. Trevor said to me, "I'm forming a band, would you be interested in playing bass?", and I was like, "oh, what sort of music?", and he named all the usual classic stuff, and he said, "we've got this guitar player called Vivian Campbell. Why don't you come up and have a blast?" So we went up, and it was like; "fucking hell!", because he was outrageous from day one, absolutely outrageous.
So he clearly had that guitar playing skill that he carried onto Dio and beyond?
Yes, I mean, I knew he was outrageous, we all knew he was outrageous, but when we went to do the Friday Rock Show, Tony Wilson and Tommy Vance, they were going, "this kid's outrageous". You could tell he was world class, so I wasn't surprised. We were the opening act for Wild Horses, which was Jimmy Bain and Brian Robinson from Lizzy, and then Jimmy formed the band [Dio] with Ronnie. Jimmy and Vinny Appice were the first to join with Dio, because Jimmy had played with Ronnie and Rainbow, etc, all that history, and Vinnie had played with Ronnie in Black Sabbath, and Ronnie wanted a British guitar player.
Yes, he wanted someone like Richie Blackmore, didn't he?
He did, he wanted a Blackmore / Tony Iommi, and Jimmy says, "I know the dude", and that's how Viv got the gig. So, off he went, and it was like, "Viv, fair play, kid, you deserve it", because as nippers, on the weekend, Trevor and I, we'd go out, and Viv just sat in Friday night, Saturday night, practice, practice, and he'd say, "give me a call, and I'll come and collect you", and we'd be hammered, he'd drive down after practicing, and give us a lift home, and then he'd practice more, so he put the work in,
He jumped on stage with you back in 2003 in Belfast, didn't he?
He did. Do you know where you know we're playing with Def Leppard in Belfast in a couple of weeks?
That was my next question; is he likely to join you on stage again?
I don't know. I've said to Viv, because I'd always say a politeness, "V, do you want to get up and do a couple of numbers?", so he hasn't said yes, and he hasn't said no. I mean, maybe when we are on stage, Viv will still be in his hotel room, or whatever, but we always say, "Viv, you're always welcome", and it'd be lovely to get him up for old times' sake. He went on to do great things, and he's done great things, and fair play to him with the whole Def Leppard thing, and Whitesnake, Def Leppard. I mean, the pedigree doesn't get any better.
So, is there any chance then that you might work with Vivian again in the future?
Well, V and I - I always call him V, and he always calls me Redmond - So V and I, we're putting out all the stuff from the '80s. Universal want to put out all the old stuff, so we're going to. With Mark, the manager of Sweet Savage, we've just went through all these tapes. We've sixteen tapes, you know, endless, the same track, different versions, recorded at different studios, blah blah blah. So we're putting out this old stuff, and then Viv and I come up with the idea, "why don't we do two new ones?", So we recorded two new songs, and they're ready to rock and roll. We actually had hoped to get it out about now [June 2026], but with his touring commitments, and whatever he's doing, because he's had a busy year so far, we're now going to have it ready, so we, as Sweet Savage, we think would be more advantageous to us, as the band, to try and hold it to the start of next year. So we're getting it ready for a release next year, but it's all the stuff, and you know what? I was gobsmacked at the quality of the songs from the '80s. I was actually gobsmacked with the actual quality of the recordings. I mean they're a bit rough in comparison to what you record now, definitely, but for their age of them, they're spectacular. So two new songs, they're absolutely amazing, and they're great, and it's Viv and it's the Viv that we know.
When was the last time Vivian Campbell recorded the Sweet Savage song?
That must have been 1982. I was only three at the time. Why are you laughing? [laughing]
What else is happening for you coming forward there?
We have a great record label, Ear Music, which is a big German independent label. They're amazing, they've got, Whitesnake, Alice Cooper, Status Quo, Deep Purple - and we haven't touched on the Deep Purple thing with Simon McBride. I mean, it's an amazing, like this little band from from Belfast has two of the world-class guitar players. I mean, it's bonkers, absolutely bonkers. I mean, you think about it, there's four guitar players always named from Ireland; there's Rory Gallagher, Gary Moore, Vivian Campbell, and now Simon McBride, and two of them have played with Sweet Savage,
That's quite amazing.
Isn't it? It never ceases to amaze me. And we're going to do another record, and Simon is probably going to produce it. I don't know if he's going to play on it, because he's fully embedded with Deep Purple now, but he's going to produce it, and we're going to start writing it the other side of the summer with a view to recording it in January, February, March.
For all things Sweet Savage, visit the band's social media, here.
I did. The linchpin between Viv and I was our friend Trevor Fleming, who died about ten years ago now. Trevor was one of the major writers in the band, but it was Trevor that introduced Viv and I, and Viv and I are best friends still, to this day. I speak to Viv a couple of times a month. He lives in the States, and I'm still in Ireland, but Viv and I speak all the time, and we're really good friends. But it was Trevor that introduced us. Trevor said to me, "I'm forming a band, would you be interested in playing bass?", and I was like, "oh, what sort of music?", and he named all the usual classic stuff, and he said, "we've got this guitar player called Vivian Campbell. Why don't you come up and have a blast?" So we went up, and it was like; "fucking hell!", because he was outrageous from day one, absolutely outrageous.
So he clearly had that guitar playing skill that he carried onto Dio and beyond?
Yes, I mean, I knew he was outrageous, we all knew he was outrageous, but when we went to do the Friday Rock Show, Tony Wilson and Tommy Vance, they were going, "this kid's outrageous". You could tell he was world class, so I wasn't surprised. We were the opening act for Wild Horses, which was Jimmy Bain and Brian Robinson from Lizzy, and then Jimmy formed the band [Dio] with Ronnie. Jimmy and Vinny Appice were the first to join with Dio, because Jimmy had played with Ronnie and Rainbow, etc, all that history, and Vinnie had played with Ronnie in Black Sabbath, and Ronnie wanted a British guitar player.
Yes, he wanted someone like Richie Blackmore, didn't he?
He did, he wanted a Blackmore / Tony Iommi, and Jimmy says, "I know the dude", and that's how Viv got the gig. So, off he went, and it was like, "Viv, fair play, kid, you deserve it", because as nippers, on the weekend, Trevor and I, we'd go out, and Viv just sat in Friday night, Saturday night, practice, practice, and he'd say, "give me a call, and I'll come and collect you", and we'd be hammered, he'd drive down after practicing, and give us a lift home, and then he'd practice more, so he put the work in,
He jumped on stage with you back in 2003 in Belfast, didn't he?
He did. Do you know where you know we're playing with Def Leppard in Belfast in a couple of weeks?
That was my next question; is he likely to join you on stage again?
I don't know. I've said to Viv, because I'd always say a politeness, "V, do you want to get up and do a couple of numbers?", so he hasn't said yes, and he hasn't said no. I mean, maybe when we are on stage, Viv will still be in his hotel room, or whatever, but we always say, "Viv, you're always welcome", and it'd be lovely to get him up for old times' sake. He went on to do great things, and he's done great things, and fair play to him with the whole Def Leppard thing, and Whitesnake, Def Leppard. I mean, the pedigree doesn't get any better.
So, is there any chance then that you might work with Vivian again in the future?
Well, V and I - I always call him V, and he always calls me Redmond - So V and I, we're putting out all the stuff from the '80s. Universal want to put out all the old stuff, so we're going to. With Mark, the manager of Sweet Savage, we've just went through all these tapes. We've sixteen tapes, you know, endless, the same track, different versions, recorded at different studios, blah blah blah. So we're putting out this old stuff, and then Viv and I come up with the idea, "why don't we do two new ones?", So we recorded two new songs, and they're ready to rock and roll. We actually had hoped to get it out about now [June 2026], but with his touring commitments, and whatever he's doing, because he's had a busy year so far, we're now going to have it ready, so we, as Sweet Savage, we think would be more advantageous to us, as the band, to try and hold it to the start of next year. So we're getting it ready for a release next year, but it's all the stuff, and you know what? I was gobsmacked at the quality of the songs from the '80s. I was actually gobsmacked with the actual quality of the recordings. I mean they're a bit rough in comparison to what you record now, definitely, but for their age of them, they're spectacular. So two new songs, they're absolutely amazing, and they're great, and it's Viv and it's the Viv that we know.
When was the last time Vivian Campbell recorded the Sweet Savage song?
That must have been 1982. I was only three at the time. Why are you laughing? [laughing]
What else is happening for you coming forward there?
We have a great record label, Ear Music, which is a big German independent label. They're amazing, they've got, Whitesnake, Alice Cooper, Status Quo, Deep Purple - and we haven't touched on the Deep Purple thing with Simon McBride. I mean, it's an amazing, like this little band from from Belfast has two of the world-class guitar players. I mean, it's bonkers, absolutely bonkers. I mean, you think about it, there's four guitar players always named from Ireland; there's Rory Gallagher, Gary Moore, Vivian Campbell, and now Simon McBride, and two of them have played with Sweet Savage,
That's quite amazing.
Isn't it? It never ceases to amaze me. And we're going to do another record, and Simon is probably going to produce it. I don't know if he's going to play on it, because he's fully embedded with Deep Purple now, but he's going to produce it, and we're going to start writing it the other side of the summer with a view to recording it in January, February, March.
For all things Sweet Savage, visit the band's social media, here.
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